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  • Identité(s) libertine(s): l'écriture personnelle ou la création de soi
  • Russell Ganim
Identité(s) libertine(s): l'écriture personnelle ou la création de soi. By Laurence Tricoche-Rauline. (Libre pensée et littérature clandestine, 35). Paris: Honoré Champion, 2009. 768 pp. Hb €120.00.

Questions of what constitutes both social and intellectual libertinism have remained central to literary criticism in early modern French studies since the beginning of the twentieth century. More problematic for scholars is how to analyse, and perhaps reconcile, the two types of libertinism that emerge in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries: first, the more philosophical type of libertinage érudit rooted in sceptical, scientific, and, at times, anticlerical ideologies; and second, a kind of artistic and behavioural salaciousness rooted in a 'cabaret' culture that satirized mores, literary [End Page 95] genres, and institutions. In her exhaustive and insightful study, Laurence Tricoche-Rauline draws a number of parallels between the two categories, but leans towards the former when defining the concept. She states: 'La position des libertins, qui confèrent une dignité particulière à la sphère privée, s'inscrit dans la continuité de celle de Montaigne' (pp. 37-38). Montaigne's methods of (self-)inquiry, his application of experience, and theories of knowledge serve as examples for writers such as Pierre Charron, Montaigne's Renaissance contemporary and friend, and become models for seventeenth-century 'free thinkers' such as Pierre Gassendi and François de La Mothe Le Vayer. Emerging from this context is a kind of 'écriture personnelle' that emphasizes the presence of the 'je', which Tricoche-Rauline describes as 'la condition d'un détournement des références esthétiques, éthiques, et religieuses, face auxquelles l'individu affirme son autonomie et son aspiration àdéfinir, pour lui-même, sa vérité' (p. 34). Authorial subjectivity, as illustrated by narrative valorization of the 'je' and by the constant challenge of cultural norms in pursuit of personal truth, constitutes the parameters in which Tricoche-Rauline outlines her argument. Similarly, an anti-Jesuit sentiment pervades both types of libertinism, with François Garasse painted as the foil of libertines both cerebral and ribald. The book is divided into three parts: 'L'Identité libertine ou la transparence impossible', 'L'Écriture personnelle libertine et l'alibi de la confession', and 'La Création de soi ou les pouvoirs de l'individu'. In turn, these parts consist of either two or three chapters, each divided into subsections dealing with topics such as 'La réhabilitation de l'amour-propre', 'Les déplaisirs du mariage', or 'Des confessions anti-chrétiennes'. The most notable authors studied are Théophile de Viau, Tristan L'Hermite, Cyrano de Bergerac, Charles Dassoucy, and Jean de La Fontaine. Perhaps the most compelling of these discussions is the renewed (and welcome) focus on Dassoucy, whose Aventures burlesques is an intriguing but oftenneglected work that straddles generic boundaries between the novel, autobiography, satire, and récit de voyage. Somewhat disappointing are Tricoche-Rauline's cursory observations regarding La Fontaine's Relation d'un voyage de Paris en Limousin. This overlooked but fascinating work, written against the backdrop of La Fontaine's defence of Fouquet, is a mixture of lyric, epistolary, and travel genres, and sheds light on the artistic and political implications of the poet's role as dissident. In sum, though, Tricoche-Rauline's effort is an incisive, well-organized, and satisfying piece of scholarship that highlights the intersection of literature, religion, and philosophy at a crucial moment in French intellectual history.

Russell Ganim
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
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